The Traditional Gardening guide at gardenbuddy.au/traditional-gardening/ is a plain-English collection of the growing methods gardeners used long before an app told them anything: moon planting, crop rotation, companion pairs, homemade pest sprays, and soil building the old way. It is a reference page you read, not a calculator or a tracker. Here is what it actually covers.
A minute and a half on what the Traditional Gardening guide covers.
What the Traditional Gardening guide actually shows
The page opens with three short cards: moon planting, beneficial insects, and crop rotation, each a couple of sentences, not an essay. Below that sit four season tabs, summer, autumn, winter and spring, and each tab has its own searchable planting table. Every row names a crop, its type, spacing, days to harvest, and one growing tip. The summer table alone runs to thirteen vegetables plus basil and marigolds, and the other three seasons are a similar length.
Under the seasonal tables sits a small companion planting table, five crops, tomatoes, beans, carrots, cabbage and corn, each with good and bad companions and why the pairing works. After that comes a natural pest control section with four remedy cards, garlic spray, chilli pepper spray, coffee grounds, and neem oil, each with the ingredients and how to use it. The page finishes with three soil health tips, no-dig beds, compost tea, and cover cropping, and a twelve-month calendar of jobs timed for a subtropical garden.
Where this overlaps with other GardenBuddy.au pages, and where it does not
We checked this carefully because three sections of this page brush up against other GardenBuddy.au features, and we would rather say so than have you read the same thing twice.
- Moon planting card: this page’s moon planting card is three sentences on waxing and waning moons. The Moon Calendar is the real tool for this, it live-calculates today’s actual moon phase, illumination and zodiac sign. If you want today’s answer, use the Moon Calendar. Use this page only for the one-paragraph idea behind it.
- Companion planting table: this page’s table covers five crops. The dedicated Companion Planting Guide covers seventy, with a search box across the lot. If you garden anything other than tomatoes, beans, carrots, cabbage or corn, go straight to the dedicated guide.
- Pest remedies: the four spray recipes here are generic home remedies, not tied to a specific pest or your postcode. GardenBuddy.au’s pest and treatment pages identify actual pests and track live pest pressure by area. Use this page for a spray recipe you can mix tonight, use the pest pages to work out what is actually eating your plants.
What this page does that none of those others do: the season-by-season planting tables, the soil health tips, and the month-by-month task calendar. That is the genuinely new material here, not a rehash of a feature covered elsewhere.
Why it matters
None of this is GardenBuddy.au’s own research. It is the accumulated, unglamorous knowledge that traditional and organic gardeners have used for generations, moon timing, crop rotation, companion pairs, and homemade sprays, written down in one place instead of scattered across a dozen half-remembered tips. We are not claiming the moon planting or companion planting sections are proven science. We are saying they cost nothing to try, and the seasonal tables, soil tips and monthly calendar underneath them are the practical backbone a lot of home gardens still run on.
How to use it
- Deciding what to plant this month: open the season tab that matches now, then search the planting table for your crop.
- Got a pest problem tonight: jump to the four remedy cards for an ingredient list you likely already have in the kitchen.
- Building a new bed: read the soil health section for the no-dig method before you dig anything.
- Planning the whole year: scroll to the twelve-month calendar for a job list by month.
- Checking today’s actual moon phase, or pairing more than five crops: this page will not do either. Use the Moon Calendar or the full Companion Planting Guide instead.
Frequently asked questions
Is this the same as the Companion Planting Guide? No. This page has a five-crop table as one small section. The dedicated Companion Planting Guide covers seventy crops with a search box, and is the one to use for anything beyond tomatoes, beans, carrots, cabbage or corn.
Is this the same as the Moon Calendar? No. This page’s moon planting card is a short explanation of the idea. The Moon Calendar calculates today’s actual moon phase and zodiac sign live.
Do the planting tables account for my climate zone? The seasonal timing here is set for a subtropical garden. If you are outside that zone, pair this page with the Grow Zone Map to adjust the timing for where you actually live.
Do I need an account to read it? No. The whole page, cards, tables, remedy recipes and calendar, is open to everyone, no GardenBuddy.au account required.
Related features
- Moon Calendar: the live tool for today’s actual moon phase, zodiac sign and which crop type it favours.
- Companion Planting Guide: the full seventy-crop, searchable version of the small table on this page.
- Biodynamic Calendar: a related but separate reference guide, the Rudolf Steiner method, numbered preparations, and root, leaf, flower and fruit days.
- Grow Zone Map: find your climate zone so the seasonal planting tables here line up with your actual conditions.
Try it now
Head to the Traditional Gardening guide for the seasonal planting tables, pest remedies, soil tips and monthly calendar. For today’s real moon phase or the full companion planting list, those live on their own pages, linked above.
